Close Your Eyes and Drive

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By Ivan Sulic

Three music technology students from the Utrecht School of the Arts have made a game called Drive. New racing games are fairly common around these parts, but what makes this one so interesting is the fact that you don't have to see to play it. In fact, the whole point is that the sight impaired or Oedipus style eye-gouged can play, and play well.

Developed in cooperation with the Bartimeus institute for the blind, Drive consists solely of sound, and is thus the ultimate response to a lack of fun games for blind people. It works because these musical students claimed to have translated the raw essence of other visual racing games into a purely aural experience, instead of wasting time on superficial graphical elements.

"The object of the game is to test the maximum speed of a newly developed vehicle, named 'the Shuttle', by driving as fast as possible. This shuttle moves along a fixed track and the player has to pick up 'boosters' to gain speed. Several sound effects will try to prevent the player from doing this. The player is accompanied by co-pilot Bob and his obstinate comments. There is absolutely no visual feedback, only the game's title Drive is visible on the screen. The player is solely dependent on his hearing. Both sighted and blind testers were amazed by the terrific sound effects and share the opinion that Drive is very exciting!"

According to the folks behind Drive, blind gamers have had to traditionally fallback on rehashed versions of Old Maid and text adventures to get their fix, thus Sander Huiberts, Richard van Tol and Hugo Verweija took it upon themselves to research and develop a more exhilarating experience that's just as accessible for the blind as it is the sighted.

As if that weren't enough, Drive will also come with an online ranking system. Players who logon to the official website can upload their scores and compare them to other players the world over. Assumedly this portion of the game will also be friendly to the blind, otherwise what the hell is it there for?

Why read more when you can download Drive on the PC today? Head on over to http://drive.soundsupport.net and experience it for yourself or inform a blind friend or relative about it. It's innovative, new, and deserves an ear.